Symptoms of Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmune Disease Symptoms - Although there are over eighty different auto immune diseases, each with its own unique symptoms, they all share some common characteristics and symptoms. The list below shows the core characteristics experienced by the majority of sufferers of autoimmune disease symptoms.

Highly Recommended: One thing we recommend for anyone who is experiencing autoimmune symptoms is to have a hair tissue mineral analysis (HTMA) to test for heavy metal toxicity. Studies have shown that metals such as mercury, cadmium and lead have been associated with the development of the autoimmune diseases scleroderma, lupus, autoimmune hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, pernicious anemia, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and type 1 diabetes.

Mercury, in particular, directly damages our tissues, making them look foreign to the immune system. This is why it is crucial to assess your potential toxin exposure and take as many steps as possible to remove the toxins from your body and your environment.

A hair analysis can also measure the levels of essential minerals your body is needing and provide valuable insight into your metaoblism and what dietary changes would be most helpful for you in your recovery.

Re-Current Miscarriage - This is a very common symptom in many autoimmune diseases.

As you can see, this is an extensive list of autoimmune disease symptoms and it may be hard to believe that these symptoms are in any way connected. You are probably not experiencing all of these signs or symptoms (at least we hope not), but if you are experiencing many of them, you're not alone.

We believe that more and more people are realizing that there is a connection between their various symptoms and illnesses, and this is the theory that is followed by most alternative health specialists.

Unfortunately, many medical professionals still treat the body like it is a conglomeration of separate symptoms, which is not working out too well for many autoimmune disease patients. We are not saying this to criticize the medical community, we are simply stating a fact. We strongly believe that the symptoms of any autoimmune disease affect the whole body, and consequently the body needs to be treated as a whole.

If you treat only individual autoimmune disease symptoms, you may experience periods of remission for a while, but in our opinion and experience it is extremely difficult to get truly well unless you get to the source of the problem and treat the body as a whole.

Written by Anness Brockley and Kristin Urdiales, this book is a must read which has brought together scientific research from around the world, which uncovers the cause of autoimmune disease. This collective evidence offers valid proof, not only of the cause of autoimmune disease, but also the only possible way to cure it. Every symptom of autoimmune disease can now be clearly and traced back to its origin.

The evidence proves that these diseases share a common source, and that this source is not viral, bacterial, or genetic, but originates with a fundamental lack of nutrients that are essential to the functioning of your body. Autoimmune - The Cause and The Cure offers a personalized account of suffering that has resulted in life-saving knowledge for autoimmune sufferers everywhere.

Recently, there has been a sudden explosion of interest in a glucoside extract which comes from the white peony root.

This extract has been shown effective in treating autoimmune disease symptoms by bringing a dysfunctional, over-excited immune system back into balance.

Peony glucosides are extracted from the root of the peony flower. Unlike the dangerous drugs used to treat autoimmune disorders, peony glucosides work to simultaneously suppress excessive harmful immune functions while also boosting calming immune components.

The multiple mechanisms of action include immuno-modulatory properties and the reduction of inflammation-promoting molecules that are typically eleveated in autoimmune diseases.

According to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AADRA), there are approximately 80 - 100 conditions that are autoimmune related. The following is a list of 50 of the more common auotimmune disorders. For information on signs and symptoms of each, and for helpful books and resources, click on the link of the disease you're wanting to know about.

For most of these autoimmune disease condtions, the best that modern medicine can do is to keep some of the symptoms at bay - the root cause of the condition is rarely, if ever, addressed. In most cases, the source of autoimmunity can be traced to the overload of toxicity the body has had to deal with over many years.

Important: Identify Your Sources of Toxins and Eliminate Them

If you are experiencing autoimmune disease symptoms, then check out the common toxins that you may be exposed to, both at home and at work, and take steps to reduce your exposure or eliminate them as much as possible.

Sources of toxins include:

Mercury amalgam fillings

Pharmaceutical medications

Recreational drugs

Cigarettes

Alcohol

Caffeine

Pesticides

Insecticides

Food additives

Processed foods

Artificial sweeteners

Sodas

Perfumes and synthetic fragrances

Household cleansers

Tap water

Laundry detergent

Air fresheners

The Most Common Sources of Metal and Chemical Toxicity

The heavy metals that most commonly cause poisoning are iron, lead, cadmium (found in cigarettes), arsenic and mercury.

Tests that help to diagnose metal and chemical toxicity include blood tests, urine tests, and the analysis of hair, nails or other tissues. The most accurate of these are a chelation challenge test or a hair mineral analysis.

Regular blood tests and urine tests are not accurate in diagnosing heavy metal toxicity, as they only tend to show what is happening in the body at that brief moment in time, and do not give the long-term picture.

This makes sense since the body works hard to keep the levels of nutrients in the bloodstream within fairly tight limits. If large fluctuations in mineral levels occurred, serious illness or even death would result.

A chelation challenge test needs to be performed by a doctor who specializes in chelation therapy. The patient is given a chelating drug, commonly DMPS or DMSA, and the patient's urine is collected and analyzed over a 24 hour period. This test is a highly accurate way of knowing just what heavy metals are present in the body.

The drawbacks to this method are that it requires a visit to a health care professional's office, it is expensive, and there is a possibility of side effects to the chelating drugs.

A hair mineral analysis is an excellent alternative way of determining what toxic metals are present in the body. In addition, it also measures the levels of essential minerals in the body, such as calcium, magnesium and zinc, and toxic metal and mineral ratios. This test can provide you with much-needed information about mineral deficiencies and imbalances in your body, especially if you're suffering from symptoms of autoimmune disease.

Hair Tissue Mineral Analyses (HTMA)

A tissue mineral analysis or hair analysis provides a unique reading of heavy metal and mineral levels in the cells over a two to three month period. It takes into consideration that toxins are stored in the tissues of the body, not in the blood. For instance, you can have normal copper levels in the blood, but high copper levels in the tissues.
The reason hair is used for testing mineral status and metabolic activity is because of its very nature.

Our hair is formed from clusters of specialized cells that make up the hair follicle. During the growth phase, the hair is exposed to the internal environment such as blood, lymph and extra-cellular fluids. As the hair continues to grow and reaches the surface of the skin, its outer layers harden, locking in the metabolic products accumulated during the period of formation.

This biological processs provides a blueprint and lasting record of metal content and nutritional metabolic activity that has occured during this time.

The precise analytical method of determining the levels of minerals in the hair is a highly sophisticated technique: when performed to exacting standards and interpreted correctly, it may be used as a screening aid for determining mineral deficiencies, excesses, and/or imbalances. HTMA provides you and your healthcare professional with an economical and sensitive indicator of the long-term effects of diet, stress, toxic metal exposure and their effects on your mineral balance that is difficult to obtain through other clinical tests.

It is important for the attending healthcare professional to determine your mineral status as minerals are absolutely critical for life and abundant health. They are involved in and are necessary for cellular metabolism, structural support, nerve conduction, muscular activity, immune functions, anti-oxidant and endocrine activity, enzyme functions, water and acid/alkaline balance and even DNA function.

Many factors can affect mineral nutrition, such as: food preparation, dietary habits, genetic and metabolic disorders, disease, medications, stress, environmental factors, as well as exposure to heavy metals. Rarely does a single nutrient deficiency exist in a person today. Multiple nutritional imbalances however are quite common, contributing to an increased incidence of adverse health conditions. In fact, it is estimated that mild and sub-clinical nutritional imbalances are up to ten times more common than nutritional deficiency alone.

To get an idea of how helpful a hair tissue analysis can be, think about this: Researchers using tissue mineral analysis determined, more than 100 years after Napoloen Bonaparte's death, that he had been poisoned by arsenic. Even though his hair sample was tested more than a century after his death, it still revealed pathological amounts of arsenic that had gradually proved fatal.

Introducing The
Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis by Trace Elements, Inc.

A hair analysis usually needs to be obtained through a health care professional (which can be expensive). However, we offer a service that allows you to get a comprehensive hair tissue mineral analysis from a federally licensed laboratory called Trace Elements, Inc.

It also includes a metabolic profile, recommendations for diet and supplements based on individual results.

Unlike some labs that test hair tissue analysis, Trace Elements, Inc. does not wash the hair at the lab. Washing the hair removes some of the loosely bound minerals and can reduce some mineral readings by 50 percent or more. The hair sample is prepared in their licensed clinical laboratory by using a series of chemical and high temperature digestive procedures. Testing is then performed using highly sophisticated detection equipment and methods to achieve the most accurate and precise results.

Once you purchase the hair analysis from us, we send you a hair sample kit with instructions on how to take the hair sample.

Nutritional Elements: Extensively studied, the nutrient elements have been well defined and are considered essential for many biological functions in the human body. They play key roles in such metabolic processes such as muscular activity, endocrine function, reproduction, skeletal integrity, and overall development.

Toxic Elements: The toxic elements or "heavy metals" are well-known for their interference upon normal biochemical function. They are commonly found in the environment and therefore are present to some degree, in all biological systems. However, these metals clearly pose a concern for toxicity when accumulation occurs to excess.

Additional Elements: These elements are considered as possibly essential by the human body. Additional studies are being conducted to better define their requirements.

Significant Ratios: If the synergistic relationship (or ratio) between certain minerals in the body is disturbed, studies show that normal biological functions and metabolic activity can be adversely affected. Even at extremely low concentrations, the synergistic and/or antagonistic relationships between minerals still exist, which can indirectly affect metabolism.

Toxic Ratios: It is important to note that individuals with elevated toxic levels may not always exhibit clinical symptoms associated with those particular toxic minerals. However, research has shown that toxic minerals/metals can also produce an antagonistic effeect on various essential minerals, eventually leading to distrubances in their metabolic utilization.

Once you purchase the hair analysis from us, we send you a hair sample kit with instructions on how to take the hair sample. You then send the hair sample to the Trace Elements lab, and the lab sends us the detailed report/results, which we then mail to you. (Please note: international customers outside of the United States will be instructed to send the hair sample to us, not directly to the lab).

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